Royal Coachman’s Top 3 Travel Trends That Will Affect Travel This Year

As the airline experience itself continues to ebb and flow, airports are seeing a buzz of activity and are reinventing themselves around user experience and design. The new normal as exemplified by Incheon International Airport in Seoul, Madrid’s Barajas Airport, or Singapore’s Changi Airport, are centered around innovations like airy, light-filled primary spaces, less-intimidating security and baggage claim areas, simple signage, solutions to satiate our need to be connected (free Wi-Fi as demonstrated by JetBlue, who also offers charging stations for phones and devices), and more shopping and dining options near gates. The more successful ones have become places where people want to spend time and have experiences and not just pass through, like Chicago’s O’Hare newly launched farmer’s market inside the terminal.

Travel Trend #2: Smart Mapping Your Way to the Right Addresses

After getting off that plane, ever have trouble finding a great restaurant’s location or even worse, an offsite office where you have a meeting? Now that smartphones are at the center of our lives, navigation, in all senses of the word, takes up a large part of our digital experience. Apple realized this, and booted Google Maps off the iOS ecosystem. That move, along with Apple’s subsequent missteps in its own mapping effort, touched off a wave of activity in the mapping world. The new Google Maps app for iOS 6, launched in early December, is creating waves and Apple is scrambling to catch up. Giants like Nokia, Microsoft, AOL’s Mapquest and startups such as Waze and Lumatic are building, launching and innovating. Even the incumbent giant Google is launching new functions—incorporating content from Zagat and Frommer’s into results—as it races to differentiate itself against Apple on all fronts.

Royal Coachman offers a convenient android and iPhone app for all your ground transportation needs with just one touch. You can download them for free here:

This year saw many airlines experimenting with digital devices as the in-flight media consumption platform, or digital-enabled delivery of content services, on to users’ own devices. Tons of new investment is going into this upcoming new trend, from large incumbents to startups to even roll-up shops taking up the charge on the delivery side. Forward-looking airlines are rolling out Wi-Fi across short- and long-haul routes like there’s no tomorrow.

In –flight consumption patterns are beginning to look much like on-the-ground habits: Mixes of open-Web content-plus-services mixed with on-demand entertainment as well as live television channels.

The one constant trend that will continue to maximize your travel experience in a positive way is booking your ground transportation and limousine service needs with Royal Coachman. We offer door-to-door limo service in the New Jersey/New York Metro area, as well as many other global destinations. One call does it all, with exceptional and dependable service. Give us a call today toll free 800-472-7433 or 973-400-3200 or make a reservation online at www.royalcoachman.com.